VIVA Bellissimo 1, £549, www.evanscycles.com

Viva is a Danish company that's been making stylish bikes for a couple of decades. More recently, Evans Cycles has started importing select models from the company’s extensive line-up, including this Bellissimo 1, which is available in a vivid cyan or a more subtle beige.

In fact, there’s more than one Bellissimo model, with a choice of either the singlespeed model tested, or a women's ‘mixte’-style design (Bellissimo 7) with seven-speed hub gear.

Looks are clearly important to the Viva designers and there’s a good deal of chrome in the finishing kit, along with those colour-matched mudguards.

A sculpted chainguard covers the top chain run, combining a curved piece of steel with a bolt-on plate behind the chainring. It sounds complicated but it’s actually effective, good-looking and rattle-free.

Our bike came with two conventional brakes on its flat bars (all unbranded kit), although there’s the option to have a rear coaster brake instead. The rear hub is the 'flip-flop' variety, though it only comes with one fixed cog (an 18T), which makes the inclusion of a rear brake on our test model fairly redundant.

The stock 48T/18T gearing combination works well around town, though as the bike's a touch heavier than some stripped-down singlespeeds, you sometimes need to put a harder dig in on the hills. It’s no porker at a touch over 11kg, but that’s still a bit weightier than many of the one-geared bikes we've tested over the last year.